First time ** Watercooling ** 4 way sli gtx 780

[mrpinoux]

Hello all,
Following a lot of choices made by Smisha and his personal help (very nice), I finally decided to upgrade my computer and to make it watercooled.

My Actual (on air) Rig :

CASE : Corsair Obsidian Series 900D
MOBO (Mother Board) : ASUS X99-E WS
CPU : i7-5960X
RAM : 64GB DDR4 2800
PSU : G1600-MA - LEPA
GPU : 4 X EVGA GTX 780 6GB

Many reasons to not go with water-cooling.
Also many other reasons to go with.

I live in Los Angeles and the apartment can get really hot during summer ( +< half time of the year).
Renders can be heavy, and free heat from the computer is not always great.

I never had any experience with any water-cooling, so any advice will be more than welcome!

---

My order for Watercooling the beast (with notes from Smisha G means good, B means bad, U means useless) :

From EK : Order Date: May 14, 2015 / Scheduled Delivery Estimated : Tuesday, 05/26/2015

G EKFC780 GTX Ti Backplate Black 3831109868331 $ 29.99 Ordered: 4 $ 119.96
G EKRES X3 250 3831109841020 $ 62.99 Ordered: 1 $ 62.99
G EKFC780 GTX Ti Acetal+ Nickel 3831109868645 $ 117.99 Ordered: 4 $ 471.96
G EKXTOP Dual D5 PWM (incl. 2x pump) 3831109840795 $ 252.99 Ordered: 1 $ 252.99
G TUBE PrimoChill PrimoFlex™ Advanced LRT™ 12,7 / 9,5mm Crystal Clear (PFLEXA12) 3831109850008 $ 7.90 Ordered: 3 $ 23.70
G EKEkoolant EVO CLEAR (premix 1L) 3830046999689 $ 16.99 Ordered: 3 $ 50.97
G EKXTOP Dual D5 XRES Upgrade Link 3831109842683 $ 23.99 Ordered: 1 $ 23.99
G EKFC Bridge QUAD Parallel 3831109855300 $ 31.82 Ordered: 1 $ 31.82
G EKSupremacy EVO Full Nickel (Original CSQ) 3831109800171 $ 99.99 Ordered: 1 $ 99.99

from aquatuning : Order Date: May 14, 2015 / Packed : May 20, 2015 / Scheduled Delivery Estimated : May 26, 2015

G Aquacomputer aquaero 6 PRO USB fan-controller, graphic-LCD Current unit price: $161.45 * 1 = 161,45 $*
G Aquacomputer Temperatursensor inner/outer thread G1/4 Current unit price: $9.82 * 1 = 9,82 $*
U ModMyToys 3-Pin Female to 3-Pin Female Cable Adapter 60cm - Black Current unit price: $3.48 * 3 = 10,45 $*
G Phobya 4Pin PWM to 8x 4Pin Fan Splitter PCB Current unit price: $8.40 * 3 = 25,19 $*
U Phobya 4Pin PWM extension 90cm - black Current unit price: $4.80 * 1 = 4,80 $*
B or U Alphacool HT 16mm HardTube compression fitting G1/4 for plexi- brass tubes (rigid or hard tubes) - knurled - chrome Current unit price: $6.11 * 16 = 97,76 $*
B or G Koolance 16/10mm (ID 3/8" OD 5/8") compression fitting 90° rotatable Current unit price: $10.15 * 16 = 162,45 $*
important note! read below the list
G Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPRO PL2 ( 120x120x25mm ) Current unit price: $12.99 * 20 = 259,74 $*
G Aquacomputer faceplate for aquaero 5 and 6 PRO Aluminium black Current unit price: $10.80 * 1 = 10,80 $*
U Aquacomputer aquaremote infrared remote control for aquaero 5 and 6 Current unit price: $15.17 * 1 = 15,17 $*
G Aquacomputer Passive heat sink for aquaero 6, black Current unit price: $16.16 * 1 = 16,16 $*
U Aquacomputer RGB LED-lighning module for aquaero 5 and 6 Current unit price: $8.62 * 1 = 8,62 $*
B or U Aquacomputer waterblock for aquaero 5, G1/4 Current unit price: $21.62 * 1 = 21,62 $*
G or excellent Airplex modularity system 480 mm, copper fins,one circuit, stainless steel side panels 163,78 EUR x 2 = 327,56 EUR


Advices would be really greatly appreciated for using my RAM, GPU, GTX's at their best, OverClocking needed I presume.

SPECIFICATIONS GTX 780

Base Clock: 967 MHZ
Boost Clock: 1020 MHz
Memory Clock: 6008 MHz Effective
CUDA Cores: 2304
Memory Size : 6GB

SPECIFICATIONS i7-5960X

Haswell-E
# of Cores : 8-Core
# of Threads : 16
Operating Frequency : 3.0GHz
L2 Cache : 8 x 256KB
L3 Cache : 20MB

[smicha]

What score do you get in OctaneBench on air? What are the core and memory clocks while rendering (Octanebench)?
PS. Turn off sli for octane (you can leave the sli bridge but turn it off in nvidia panel settings).

[momade]

im also thinking about water cooling, but doesnt it just reduce noise of air cooling and prevent performance throttle due to heat? water cooling would not fight the horrible temperatures in my office, cause the heat produced by the cards is the same. it just gets transported with more eficciency... right?

[smicha]

im also thinking about water cooling, but doesnt it just reduce noise of air cooling and prevent performance throttle due to heat? water cooling would not fight the horrible temperatures in my office, cause the heat produced by the cards is the same. it just gets transported with more eficciency... right?

It's silent. While rendering on 1 gpu (out of 4) it is inaudible (aquaero 6XT sets all fans at about 500RPM) and temps are 35C on gpu. While rendering on 4 gpus overclocked by 25% temps are around 40-45C, water 35-37C and fans are spinning at about 1000RPM. Still a silent machine.

[FrankPooleFloating]

Beast will still generate same heat. That's just thermodynamics 101. Your GPUs will be chillin' like villians... you won't.. unless you find a way to remove heat from office. If you are upstairs, point a fan down steps.. even if you have central ac.

[smicha]

That's right. A well ventilated room is required...

[mrpinoux]

Oh boy, I didn't see all your answers. Thanks for the participation.

@Smisha, I'll run this benchmark with all the data asap tonight. Sli is turned off.

Some update of my rig : I'm feeling very lonely right now!! I just received 2 packages today, one from Germany and 1 from Slovenia (To L.A), and it looks..... impressive. Aaaaaaahhh what the hell did I put myself in!
This is insane!
Beautiful, and insanely mysterious.
Everything looks great, so far. Really Shinny.
As I don't know s***t on this.
But my instinct tells me that it looks durable, professional as it's very heavy and well made.

I'm still waiting for the 2 radiators. I ordered them on aquacomputer.de, and I sent them an email this friday, answered today with this :

"Hello G,
unfortunately the order has not been dispatched yet and I am not able to tell a reliable delivery date at the moment. They guy in charge who builds these radiators are currently not at work because of an injury and it is a bit unclear how long it will take. Given the fact that there is also a massive backlog with older orders I assume that it will take a longer time before your order can be processed. It is very likely that it will take at least till the end of June.
If you do not want to wait that long you can cancel your order and get a refund anytime. "

So I might order it from Frozen as now they seem to have it in stock if I believe their website.

At this point, it starts to feel really real and scary for someone like me who never tried watercooling before. I kind of hoped to have a guide right with me to tell me 'everything is ok'. I mean, it's almost $2000 of gear to make it there without any guaranty of making it right. The overall feeling is that everything is bigger and heavier than what I thought. But there is instructions with it, let's hope for the best!

Here are some pics. (I still upload them one by one which is very frustrating so if there is another way of doing it, let me know please ).

[mrpinoux]

@Smisha :

So, I ran the benchmark (https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/), here is the result :

Also Did a bunch a screenshot during the benchmark to monitor the heat / speed / etc.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.

[glimpse]

Now that's a nice build! =) See some good parts You're getting into it! =) & very curious to see the end result!

[smicha]

So far so good.

Moments when boxes arrive are always exciting. Collect all parts and take your time. Don't rush. It's lots of fun. There is nothing to be scared of.

Your result on water will be 20% faster, cooler and quieter.

Did you order 2x aquacomputer airplex modularity 480 rads? Make sure the fittings match their inlets when you get them.

Frozencpu is closed, isn't it?